


Not Too Late

by navaan



Category: Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Genre: Community: comicdrabbles, Extended Scene, F/M, Ficlet, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-06
Updated: 2012-11-06
Packaged: 2017-11-18 02:53:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/556078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thinking about Selina makes Bruce realize something about himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Too Late

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [](http://comicdrabbles.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://comicdrabbles.livejournal.com/)**comicdrabbles** prompt #017 Late

He promises Selina a clean slate. Because he believes she can be more, she can be _better_. And more than anything he hopes she will take this chance and change her life. It's painful to look at this beautiful, clever young woman and think of all the lost potential. He's seem her do good already – just using the wrong tools. Selina Kyle could be _so much more_ and he wants to be there to see it.

And for the first time he understands what Alfred must see every time he looks at him. Everyday since he'd come back to Gotham that must have been what went through his mind. Bruce Wayne could have been so much more, living a different life.

Bruce watches her walk away from him - elegance and grace in a run-down city, a war zone. But still Gotham. Still his city.

It makes him think of Rachel. He'd seen Rachel walk away from him just like Selina is walking away from him now, but with the promise of being with him once he finally allowed himself to be Bruce Wayne again. And then she had died and their time had never come. Even shut away from the world he had never given up on Batman. He had never just let Bruce Wayne live. Not even for a day. Not even for Rachel.

It's a miracle that he's standing here at all on his own two feet now. But he _is_ here now and he'll see this through as Batman. Still, for the first time since starting all of it he asks himself how it would be to walk away from it all. Selina has the wish to walk away from her life of thievery and crime, to not live on the run for once, to start over with a clean slate and hopefully that will allow her to realize her full potential and be happy.

Maybe if he walks away from this alive it's not too late for Batman to give Bruce Wayne a clean slate of his own.

If he survives this.

And suddenly he really wants too.


End file.
